I should have known better, as the whole cowboy genre is terrible as fuck. Westerns (as boomer Americans call the genre) have the slowest dialogue, the corniest patriarchal story-line, and are obviously filled with a heap ton of other problematic bits. Of course, I had to try as the game got great reviews. I thought I'd try it with the Steam summer sale.
Fuckkkkkkkk the long boring ass cut scenes. OMG pls talk faster and have dialogue that's interesting. The beginning of the game is just 30 minutes of video and riding your horse so slowly through the snow. I thought that my TikTok brain couldn't stand some old slow game from a bygone era, but I'm checking this shit and it was released in 2018!
If I was some prat who loved the mythology of the "settling of the west", a game with a white dude on a horse on a mountain would get me hard. Why can't more games be like Atomic Heart? I wanna defend the land of Stalin and have cut scenes with good dialogue a talking glove that debates theory and a sexy refrigerator that probably wants to murder me.
RDR2 is about a man realizing he and his ilk were sent by the American bourgeoisie to colonize land only to then have it stolen again from them in turn. It’s about the remorse from realizing you’ve been wrong your entire life, and desperately wishing to undo it. Arthur is scum, he even vocalizes this - he hates himself. He then realizes he does in fact, have a soul but if only too late.
Most of this isn’t written explicitly which is why I would argue the writing is good, actually.
Also you get to kill Klan members.
You get to kill Klansmen, pinkertons, us army, sheriffs, italians, confederate dead enders, oil men, and a great variety of other late closing of the west scum.
100%
You can surmise some of what Arthur’s values are by who he perceives as his enemies.
He also really hates debtors considering his relation to
Herr Muller.Strauss.Does the debtor thing change over the game? I remember that incident early on being what gets him really thinking about who he is. It's a lot more personal than robbing banks and running cons, and it seems to be his shooting the albatross moment.
I think his antagonism towards mueller helps highlight Arthur's hypocrisy in trying to think of himself as some kind of principled robber. Mueller robs people ruthlessly with less blood spilled, while Arthur shoots people left and right, while trying to consider himself noble or at least better.
Like, I think that's a theme - they're all crooks with various levels of pretension about it. Josiah and that card sharp are gentlemen thieves running clever cons. Arthur's a simple thug. John's kind of a dumbass brought up in the life. His wife is ujst kind of stuck with it all for lack of alternatives. The younger women have the freedom of a mostly egalitarian comrades at the cost of the violence and uncertainty of their lifestyle. Lenny and Charles get a place where they're respected and valued they wouldn't find in white society. Micah's a stone psychopath who show's all their pretension's of better or worse thieves and killers to be empty. And Dutch is the what no theory does to a motherfuckers ideologe who brings all these lost souls together but whose hubris and lack of grounding drives them towards destruction.
They're a mish-mash of all kinds of people alienated from mainline society for many different reasonns whose membership in the gang grants them a very precarious and temporary freedom from the violence of the world, at the cost of being predators who feed on the vulnerable people of that world despite whatever pretensions they might have about what they do.
There's definitely something there about the cost of freedom being a life of war. You can be free from society, but that inevitably puts you outside of society as a criminal and an outlaw, and severely limits how you can earn your daily bread. You can be free and wild, but you're gonna die young and die hard. And most people don't choose that life, but are stuck there by circumstance and the violence of society. And then the "closing of the west" brings the violence and control of the state to the liminal space between the alleged wilderness and the alleged civilization, sort of reflecting how the cops have encroached in to every single moment of our lives.
Does the debtor thing change over the game? I remember that incident early on being what gets him really thinking about who he is.
Major spoilers for RDR2.
spoiler
The entirety of the debtor storyline pretty much sums up Arthur’s entire character arc. He loathes working for
MullerStrauss in the (first?) collection mission he contracts the illness that eventually wakes him the fuck up. Over the course of the game when you accept missions from Muller, Arthur snipes at him over the nature of his work and grouses about having to be his attack dog. When he finds out he is dying, he starts wrestling with his mortality and with it his morality. This culminates with him givingMullerStrauss the boot from the camp. (Or I think outright killing him? It might be a decision I can’t remember.)My biggest criticism of the games writing is it saying “Arthur doing these shakedowns is the thing that literally kills him” It’s a bit too on the nose but overall the writing is great.
Sorry if I don't get involved in this discussion as I don't know the game enough. I just think that it's cool that you two are really hashing this out.
This discussion shows one of the main reasons why it's such a good game though. It has a depth that very few other games have achieved, not just in terms of the world and lore, but as a genuinely human kind of story that also manages not to turn all its social commentary into tepid, lib-friendly clichés.
However I don't know why people in this thread keep calling the loan shark character "Muller." His name is Strauss.
spoiler
he doesn't kill him he basically runs him out the camp with a "GO ON GIT!" kinda thing
My biggest criticism of the games writing is it saying “Arthur doing these shakedowns is the thing that literally kills him” It’s a bit too on the nose but overall the writing is great.
There is literally nothing wrong with this? What exactly is the criticism?
Its a minor criticism, but my issue with it is it’s not subtle. Like working for a debtor was obviously killing Arthur spiritually and metaphorically, making it also literally killing him seemed unnecessary.
Oh I get you, but I don’t think that was because they couldn’t be subtle, that was because it was a prequel and there is absolutely no mention of Arther in the first game, so he kinda has to die.
spoiler
I don't think you can kill him you just get the option to run him out of camp eventually
Arthur sees himself as a simple thug, and in practice, is a simple thug. But when they’re not robbing he’s actually quite complex, but as OP points out, he hates himself.
There are several moments in the game where he talks with the women in the gang, and they all compliment him for being thoughtful, intelligent, and handsome compared to the other male members, but he dismisses them and says he doesn’t know anything about anything. He also talks about how much of a bad and ugly person he is in his journals.
Dutch, his “father,” and some of the other members such as Micah and Bill see Arthur as the enforcer and nothing more. They never ask him about his thoughts on plans or life and in fact tell him to shut up and shoot, so Arthur just goes along because father knows best. In addition to everything else mentioned in these threads, Arthur also has low self esteem. He’s aware of the harm he brings, but doesn’t believe he has any good in himself until he gives up his life for the gang.
Uncle sings both John Brown’s Body and Dixie at the campfire
https://youtu.be/gUo9XpuPYaAI found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
RDR2 is about a man realizing he and his ilk were sent by the American bourgeoisie to colonize land
I disagree. The Van Der Linde gang was somewhat anarchistic before Dutch recruited Strauss and hit his head. And even then, they didn’t extract rent on the behalf of anyone except themselves.
They didn’t colonize any land, and in fact, the gang resisted the settlers in the form on being outlaws and grasping onto the last pieces of “wildness” as modernization creeped in. Arthur only realizes the gang’s struggle for freedom was shared with other marginalized groups at much more intense and existential levels, such as the Guarman slaves, the Indians, and even less “grander” groups such as the sex workers, and Arthur himself from the very gang he considered his whole identity.
I agree with everything else, but him being “wrong his entire life” isn’t necessarily about land or colonization, but him realizing that he’s one of the few people in the gang who still truly wants freedom whereas Dutch - his father figure - and his faction (who he considered much of them as family) are clinging onto a delusion of freedom and holding him back, no different than how the government’s colonization of land and people is a delusion of freedom and holding other people back.
tbh I didn’t mean the gang specifically, the cowboy mythos was created and perpetuated by the bourgeoisie to colonize land indirectly and Arthur’s story is kind of a recognition of the farse that it was
Oh yeah in terms of deconstruction it definitely recognizes the mythology.
Whole bunch of city slickers in here with a bunch of fancy opinions for why a game where you can shoot pinkertons in the face with exploding ammunition is not the best goldurn game of all time, I tell ya what. for all them $5 words I ain't found a single opinion worth rubbing two nickels together for.
Unironically it has a lot of opportunities to not be a lib in the game. It’s not communist by any means, but you gotta hand it to them you definitely get to kill cops, klan, and loser southerners. I’ve never played Atomic Heart but I remember the talk around it was that the aesthetics were cool but still lib at heart.
Atomic Heart is basically just lib in the sense that it doesn't really care about politics at all. It's set in a communist society but that doesn't really matter, because it's the robot apocalypse anyway.
Which is pretty cool tbh, a game set in a communist society that doesn't constantly monologue at you about how communism no food social credit corruption tyranny is a pretty positive step.
I guess I have to give it a try because I can’t really see how a game like that wouldn’t just blame all the bad things happening to you on the communist society that made the robots.
Granted I haven't actually finished the game so maybe it takes a turn like that eventually. But I got pretty deep into it and as far as I could tell that's not the angle they were approaching it from
Not even comparable and you should be ashamed trying to elevate playing a toy to the level of a visit to any museum worth its salt.
Uncultured.
I'm not being super serious. I do think your comparison is a bit silly imo, but you do you pal.
I didn't take it personally. I'm half joking (I do think it's a silly comparison still).
Why are you up and down this thread taking up for the game? I'm not trying to be rude, but it seems like you're taking it more personally than I am.
I said elsewhere in the thread. No game is perfect.
taking up for the game
I liked the game I thought that was obvious. I only asked because it didn’t seem like a comment worth getting mad about? I thought it was funny.
I'm half joking
Sure buddy
I get that you liked the game. (Yes it's obvious) I like games that have been dissed here before as well. I don't waste my time defending them in threads for an hour. Just kind of weird to identify so strongly with a piece of media (to me anyways)
Anyways you breaking down my post like some actual reddit guy with quotes tells me you're at least somewhat mad.
So I'm going to end the convo here. Have a nice day chief
Can we at least be friends? I'm sorry.
I prefer Elden Ring and Bloodborne for my Modern games, you prefer Rdr2. That's fine.
My critiques of the game
-
the story is at odds with the gameplay. Arthur belongs in a slow burn Coen Brother's anti-western with very little shooting and a few moment's of shocking violence. The gameplay is gta on horses
-
way way too unfocused. Like you said, many parts of the game drag. There's far too much side content and it's easy to lose track of what's even happening in the story. Way too many systems - quasi rpg elements, a huge and mostly irrelevant inventory, fishing.
-
what no theory does to a mf'er. Rockstar is clearly flirting with Dutch as an illegalist or egoist anarchist, but they can't or won't commit to actually talking theory and the game loses much of it's potential as social commentary because of that. They could have said a hell of a lot more if they actually explicitly discussed different theories of anarchism and how Dutch's predatory fake Anarchism contrasts with contemporary Anarchist and communist movements, and how his theory fails in the face of encroaching industrial capital
-
you can't fucking shoot micah. Dude's such a goddamn albatross and he's out of line with the rest of the gang. I don't think he was needed as a character for the plot and i think he detracts from the gang's charicterization and Dutch and Arthur's dynamic.
The story being at odds with the gameplay is such a common thing in a lot of these big budget popular games that I just sort of look past it now. Joel is a man who struggles with his morality while he's racking up a triple digit body count and throwing Molotov cocktails at people's groins. Am I doing the right thing? He wonders as he single-handedly wipes out a hospital full of people to make sure there's no cure for an apocalyptic disease
Am I doing the right thing? He wonders as he single-handedly wipes out a hospital full of people to make sure there's no cure for an apocalyptic disease
Well he didn’t care if it was the “right thing” because he wasn’t given any reasonable information to ponder about.
He was lied to, had a gun pointed to his head by his employer after keeping his end of the deal, and denied the chance of seeing his surrogate daughter before a vague, ominous medical procedure. Given that context, I would say he was a horrible person if he reacted any other way than killing everyone and rescuing Ellie.
Does Joel ponder about his morality at all? Maybe in the show but I can’t remember in the first game. He kind of stopped giving a shit about everything after his daughter died, and only regained his humanity in a handful of moments. Not to mention, it’s not completely unrealistic. How many soldiers have killed dozens of people and wondered if they did the right thing, then kept doing it anyway?
I apologize to once again to keep my bullshit going but to your point about Dutch’s characterization (which I think nails him to a tee) I think he was written a faux (some kind of) radical intentionally but not because of some lack of theory (but this could still also be true) but for both finishing up Arthur’s arc when he realizes he’s full of shit and setting his character up to make sense retroactively for RDR1 as a villain for Marston.
Agreed. I think Dutch is brilliant. He is absolutely an Egoist and has essentially recontextualized American self-mythology to justify doing the same shit that the bourgeoise do. Not in a "revolutions are bad cause they just become the tyrant" way, but in the sense that Dutch witnesses real suffering and horrors, takes note, on some level does care, but still cannot kill this BS idea of the American Dream. He is "I'm not like other girls" but as a gunslinger. We see it in how he never really interacts with the workers we see suffering, he never really interacts with the immigrant communities, he never really interacts with the Natives. He cares on some level for their plights, but he will use them as excuses, as cover for his own schemes.
he is like those people in the early days of the Russian Revolution who joined anarchist orgs just to be criminals and had to be purged by said orgs and led to a bunch of distrust
Dude's such a goddamn albatross and he's out of line with the rest of the gang. I don't think he was needed as a character for the plot and i think he detracts from the gang's charicterization and Dutch and Arthur's dynamic.
I agree with that. He's s totally superfluous character, who seems to only exist to let Dutch off the hook to a degree.
what no theory does to a mf'er.
I actually made a post titled that here when i played it
I really love the game and story though. I'd disagree about it being unfocused or ill paced, but the nature of the medium allows the player to mess up the pacing to a degree - so its a hard point to argue, except i think that team did it better than anyone and you can see them learning over the years how to tell stories in that style of game.
but the nature of the medium allows the player to mess up the pacing to a degree
It's a slow burn for sure, long game, but I felt like all the times RDR2 messes up the pacing is entirely unforced errors. So much of it was me not magically taking the golden line on my horse on the ever-present "ride and talk" phases that inexplicably require me to do shit despite nothing ever happening and having characters cut out in the middle of their sentence to go "We're here now" or "Hey, wrong way!" 'cause I veered off 1° too much
I think that's one of the biggest problems RDR2s story has. Just committ and pull MGS4 levels of cutscenes instead of this bullshit
Just committ and pull MGS4 levels of cutscenes instead of this bullshit
Dear gods no! Not that! I'd put up with it from Kojima, but only because MGS4 was great(despite being the lesser of those 4 games in my opinion).
I actually enjoy riding and talking, and i prefer it a million times over to a cutscene. That's part of why the camp is so good! It allows story to be there without taking you out of being in the game. A lot like the codec from MGS - MGS3 (they really fumbled the codec and hiw you interact with it in 4 in favor of cutscenes)
But I also enjoyed the fishing, so we may just have different taste. I liked going out on a long fishing trip, going camping, doing some hunting. Afterwards, go into town and get a shave and trim, a nice meal, maybe gamble. Doing those things, for me, was part of the experience of rhe story. Not a separate thing. It was a chance to be Arthur, and live in that world for a bit. Go out and get money or hides for the camp to upgrade it, hang out with the gang etc.
I feel like the overall pace of the game is based on an idea of how most people interact with these kinds of games. I know when i play a game like this, the fitst thing i want to do is explore the world, and interact with all its mechanics. Thats why Chapter 2 at Horseshoe Overlook is perfect, in my opinion. Its fairly central in the map. The story stakes, despite being on the run, don't feel as high. The attitude and atmosphere of the camp are I'd imagine similar to what it was before the Blackwater Ferry job.
That whole section lends itself to going off and expporing, gambling, doing challenges, fishing, hunting - and most important of all - getting Arthur a decent wardrobe and the facial hair/hair length situation you want. That's why they tucked that gold in the burned down sheriff's office just west of camp - they want you to buy some essential cosmetics for Arthur or maybe get you guns engraved, or saddles for your horse, whatever you care about most. That's why most of the map is completely available from Chapter 2 on. You're not really gated from too from the start because thats when most oeoole want to do those things.
The story and stakes, pick up steam and focus as you go. With each new camp things get more dire. And you want to engage more directly in the story.
That was a big thing that yeam learned. For ages video game stories would start off as focused and coherent and then completely lose the plot as they gradually let players off to do sude stuff. I feel like they learned to do things the opposite way and i feel it works better.
The camp is fine, at least that paint's an atmosphere. The limited walk speed and some of them camp reactions when you cross the magic boundaries are kind of annoying at worst, but that's it.
My problem is RDR2 already has MGS4 level amount of cutscenes with every mission startind and having middle parts of "ride your horse and talk", except they're all uncinematic and the pacing gets thrown off over the smallest things. It feels like trying to have your cake and eat it, too. Either make this interesting or engaging in gameplay, or at least use the very good looking world you've built and make it cinematic. Cowboy Desert Bus Talking simulator is just the worst combinations.
True. It would be rad it you were fighting some bigger power. Fighting personal demons for dozens of hours gets tiring.
You do fight larger powers. You fight government agents, oil/sugar tycoons, and the industrialization of society.
Also you assist in a revolt on Not Cuba against some imperialists/gusanos.
You quite literally fight a giant colonial Spanish warship that’s sent in to assist a private company to kill you after you help (presumably socialist) Cuban slaves rebel in a sugar plantation
I think they are confirmed socialist, but they are more an expy of Puerto Rico than Cuban. that warship is Cuban actually. Dont ask me how that makes sense
The only source for the socialism is a one off comment made by gusanos while hanging the slaves. It’s never really explored upon whether they were actually socialists or it was just a red scare, but i’ll choose to believe they’re socialists.
I mean this is 1899, LatAm socialists are not super prominent or common at the time, certainly not in armed revolts yet. I read it as more serious. I mean yeah maybe it is a callback to Landon Ricketts in RDR calling John a socialist. Though in that context you also had a revolution happening around them which once again the military call socialists. We do get more of their political program which Reyes aside, is pretty socialist. The Guarma rebellion is likely based on the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the time lines right up and said party fought in Puerto Rico as well, which while not proclaiming itself socialist, was led by various figures who would form the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba decades later like Carlos Baliño
Well Dutch is already the epitome of what no theory does to a mf. He spouts platitudes and motivational speeches based on what he wants. The gang is largely illiterate/uneducated, on the run, and, well, gangsters. I don’t know much of organized crime groups during this era that cared much for any theory.
-
But you can brutally massacre a congregation of Kkklansmen in that game.
One of the all time best gaming moments. Until i encountered them, i had no idea why you'd need dragon's breath ammo for your shotgun. Then it all made sense.
I enjoyed it a lot, and also saying that atomic heart has better dialogue made me chuckle, so thanks for that!
If I was some prat who loved the mythology of the "settling of the west", a game with a white dude on a horse on a mountain would get me hard. Why can't more games be like Atomic Heart? I wanna defend the land of Stalin and have cut scenes with good dialogue a talking glove that debates theory and a sexy refrigerator that probably wants to murder me.
When someone drops a take so stupid I’m not even gonna bother defending my favorite game
Woah now.
Easy boy
You okay there?
Heh heh, that's my boy. Yah! Yah!
When you accidentally hit antagonize and there you go, murdering again.
Law Of The West on Amiga/NES is the superior cowboy townfolk antagonizing game.
Games don't need to be constantly exciting, just like movies don't have to be. Bladerunner 2049 is one of my favorites, same with Stalker, and they let their shots run.
Slow media consumption can be nice.
I think it depends on what you find excitable. I think everything about RDR2 was heat except the gameplay whch held my hand too much and repetitive and the money aspect didn’t match with the story.
Fr you could have left for Tahiti by like the 3rd or 4th hideout.
RDR is, RDR2 is the video game equivalent of when Homer designs a car
RDR are two completely different games that are joined by name only. Loved both of them, but for different reasons entirely.
My bad I was supposed to type RDR and RDR2 are two completely different games, but you’re correct. The entire RDR franchise is basically three completely different game lmfao
I can see why someone else could find it fun. It was just too damn slow for me.
I hyped up the anger and cursing for entertainment value.
I don’t mind when you’re trolling with media with obvious themes, but RDR2 is one of those games full of blue curtain enjoyers, so when I see “RDR2 is about settling and pro-patriarchy” I just gotta hit you with that
stare
damn, i'm gonna make a mod just for you. it's gonna have subway surfers and minecraft parkour in the bottom half of the screen to liven the game up
That may be the only way my partner can get me to play the Final Fantasy MMO.
OK the main game is definitely boring but it's actually a good game to listen to a podcast in the background. Just vibing and hunting
HOWEVER
The online PVP fighting is the worst, absolute worst game experience in history.
- It has a form of auto aim that makes headshots incredibly easy
- It has 1-shot headshots
- The ONLY penalty for dying is respawning 100 meters away.
It's SO BORING. SO BORING. I call it "Headshot Sysyphus" It's absolutely fucking pointless. I got into multiple extended fights roughly 5v5 and it's literally a contest to see who can get bored first.
The varmint rifle at the release of Red Dead Online was objectively the best weapon in the game. Cheapest ammo, one hit headshots, can take it into any game mode you want.
